Politics and Policy With a Punch

Author Archives :
Bob Brownstein

If you heeded the warnings that San Jose City Councilmember Johnny Khamis and the California Restaurant Association (CRA) offered at the Council meeting last Tuesday, you probably rushed out in the last couple of days to buy as much steak as you can before the city’s new minimum wage sends restaurant prices through the roof. That is, unless you’re…

Most of us know that the Mercury News has a long and shameful history of misusing its role as a critic of sleazy campaign advertisements or mailings. Basically, it expresses outrage at anything that tarnishes its preferred candidates and whitewashes the attacks on those it opposes. Scott Herhold’s recent column on the “nasty shots” of 2016 is one more incident…

Now that the Opportunity to Work Initiative has been placed on the November Ballot, I’d like to make a prediction. San Jose’s elected leaders are going to hear from outraged business owners who will argue the proposal will do them grievous harm. The source of their information will be the Chamber of Commerce, and the information will be a disgraceful…

Scott Herhold The Mercury News Dear Mr. Herhold, Your recent column urging Congressman Mike Honda to step down gave me the idea for this column. Scott, it is time for you to resign from the Mercury News. I know this goes against your deep seated yearnings to lavishly, inaccurately, and disingenuously support establishment political interests. But you need to face…

Any grassroots, community or neighborhood activist who has struggled to get the City of San Jose to expand public services has likely encountered a perennial refrain – We’d love to help but the money just isn’t there. A year ago, my think tank, Working Partnerships USA, and SPUR, a Bay Area urbanist organization decided to take a cold look at…

Special to The Mercury News By adopting only minimal improvements to San Jose’s rent control law, the City Council has allowed our affordable housing crisis to grow worse each year. Wildly escalating rents are the most damaging effect of the region’s housing problems. High rents displace seniors and low wage workers; they force multiple families to crowd into a single…

In two months, I’ll be 70 years old. I’ve been fighting for the rights and well-being of working people for longer than many of the people in this room have been alive. I made my first speech in favor of health insurance for all Americans in June of 1964. The MediCare Act was signed a year later, but after that…

Usually, a Whooper column is written to expose a story or column that distorts information or presents a misleading narrative. Today, we shine the light of truth on a piece that does all of that PLUS it includes some utter stinkin’ indefensible flat out lies. The article in question appears in San Jose Inside’s column, The Fly (1/27/16). Its title…

The City of San Jose is considering the adoption of a Crime Free Multi-Housing Program supposedly designed to facilitate the eviction of problem tenants. However, it is written so badly it places at risk victims of domestic violence, residents who engage in acts of civil disobedience and others who are in no way a threat to their neighborhood. The discussion…

The Whopper of the Week is back! Nothing seems to bring out whoppers like city discussions about land and housing. Recent debates over the conversion of land from commercial to residential use and over renter protection policies (like rent control) vividly demonstrate this correlation.